LITERARY NOTES

Evening Post, Volume CXXVIII, Issue 1, 1 July 1939, Page 27

LITERARY NOTES

BOOKS AND AUTHORS

Among the latest books to be banned in Germany are all the works of Hendrik Willem van Loon and W. J. Makin's "Brigade of Spies." According to a report from New York, /'The Pickwick Papefs" is to be filmed as a trilogy. The first part would .deal mainly with Mr. Pickwick, the second with Sam Weller, and the! third with Jingle. . A first edition of Montaine's essays is to be sold in Paris. It is the only copy of the first edition in existence, and, belongs to Montesquieu, the j French philosopher and author. The price has been fixed at 15,000 francs. I , Herr Hitler,4t is learned,, is writing j another book. It is intended to sup-I plement the Fuhrer's private income and to help finance, the' cost of his new home near Berchtesgaden. The new book will be autobiographical. Its provisional title is "Mem Leben" ("My Life"), and it may be nearly as long as "Mem Kampf." 'This, in the English unexpurgated edition, runs to 560 closely-printed pages. Many widely-read bopks dealing with the uiner secrets of man and the universe have been written by Sir Francis Younghusband, arid his wide knowledge of India, Tibet, and * China has made him an authority on mysticism that is not too far removed from life as it must be lived in the West. A recent convalescence gave him a long-wanted opportunity to unite the many doctrines expounded in his other books into a simple statement, of his beliefs at; modified and justified by a long life* of practice. The result is an inspiring volume which he calls "The Sum of Things," published by John Murray. "We talk of threats and perils in this our own day, but nothing that Hitler has achieved or is likely to achieve approaches the dominion that Napoleon was attempting at that moment in 1812," writes Sir Hugh Wai. polel "Men were not only terrified of what he might do but obsessed by the greatness of his personality, and it was in this especially that Napoleon differed very strongly from Hitler. It is the difference again perhaps between W. G, Grace and Mr. Don Bradman."